Audacious with Chion Wolf

A robot Christmas ornament. A clay golem from Prague. A piece of JFK's inauguration cake that's been around for more than six decades. No, this isn't the inventory of a particularly eccentric museum. It's what people brought to our fifth Audacious LIVE Show & Tell! Back at Dead Language Beer Project in Hartford, we invited CT Public listeners and audience members to speak about meaningful obje...

How can a harp be both one of the most intimate - and one of the most enormous - instruments in the world?  Tony Pederson plays his harp at the bedsides of people who are dying, listening closely to their breathing and responding with music created specifically for those delicate moments.  William Close invented the Earth Harp, attaching enormous strings to canyons, buildings and skyscra...

For most people, mini golf is casual. A little windmill, a little ice cream, maybe some light family trash talk.  But in this episode, you'll meet competitive players who practice for tournaments, a Guinness World Record holder who played 4,941 holes in 24 hours, and a British enthusiast who has visited more than 1,100 mini golf courses.  Along the way: specialized balls, sore backs, and...

Some people go to the mall to shop or meet up with friends at the food court or get a good walk in. Some people work there. Michael Townsend secretly lived in a mall. For four years, Townsend and fellow artists co-opted a hidden apartment inside Providence Place Mall, complete with furniture, dishes, a PlayStation and even a waffle maker, all while trying to stay invisible to mall security. Then,...

Meet two men who survived suicide attempts, and built lives around helping others imagine a future beyond despair. Kevin Hines, one of the few to survive a jump from the Golden Gate Bridge, reflects on the instant regret, the long recovery, and the tools he uses when “brain pain” returns - recorded just days before the 25th anniversary of his attempt. Then, Connecticut therapist Steve...

Wander with the Audacious crew through 175 acres of wonder and delight to meet the people who bring The Big E to life!    From a Lost & Found sage, to a fairy from the Florence Griswold Museum, to a hot tub ace, to Amber, the bathroom attendant/joy DJ.   President & CEO Gene Cassidy shares the soul of the Exposition, then we follow our heads, hearts, and (especiall...

After Charles Wolf’s wife, Katherine, was killed in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, he found himself taking on an unlikely new role: activist.  Wolf became a tireless advocate for victims’ families, challenging the federal compensation system and successfully pushing for reform. His efforts later became part of the movie Worth , with Stanley Tucci playing him. ...

Welcome to the Brimfield Antique Flea Market! Thousands of buyers and sellers descend on a small Massachusetts town three times a year, filling fields with furniture, vintage clothes, tools, art, oddities and things you didn’t know existed five minutes ago.  We spend the day roaming the country’s largest outdoor antiques show, meeting serious collectors, first-timers, lifelong dea...

In honor of Dolly Parton, we’re rebroadcasting a conversation with her niece, singer/songwriter Jada Star.  Jada shares what it was like growing up with Aunt Dolly, watching the rest of the world fall in love with her, and learning from her example of kindness, faith, hard work, and generosity. For a transcription of this episode,  click here . Original air date: January 6, 2024. G...

The Playboy Bunny is one of America’s most recognizable symbols, but it never represented a single experience.  Candace Jordan was both a Bunny and a Playmate in the ‘70s, and remembers Playboy as a source of sisterhood, ambition, opportunity and lifelong belonging.  Victoria Valentino was Miss September 1963, and for her, becoming a Playmate became tied to family rejection a...

For decades, journalist Scott Wallace has traveled the world documenting conflict, culture, and extraordinary lives. But nothing compared to a ten-week expedition through one of the most remote regions of the Brazilian Amazon.  His assignment: accompany an effort to help protect one of the last uncontacted tribes on Earth, the Flecheiros , or “People of the Arrow,” while avoiding...

Most days fade into the next. You make the coffee, answer the emails, run the errands, fold the laundry, try to keep up.  But every once in a while, life gives you a moment that blows your freakin' mind.  For more than a year, at the end of Audacious interviews, we've asked guests one final question: Will you tell me about a pinch me moment in your life? Here are their answers: stories o...

When someone tells you they’ve survived sexual abuse, the conversation can feel tender for everyone involved: the person choosing what to share, and the person trying to respond with care. How can we make those moments feel safer, more honest, and less lonely?  Beth Hamilton, executive director of the Connecticut Alliance to End Sexual Violence, offers guidance on how to respond with st...

What happens when a Brooklyn woman who identifies as queer, liberal, vegan, and an atheist donates her kidney to a conservative Christian man from Virginia? Kerry Kennedy and Joey Shervey tell the story of what it looks like when compassion outvotes everything else. Their transplant crossed party lines and personal beliefs to create an unexpected friendship. Then, Lindsay Vigue describes how a sma...

How do you play the violin without a right hand? How do you drum after losing a leg? How do you rap and create beats when you can only move your head and shoulders?  Adrian Anantawan was born without his right hand and most of his right forearm, and learned violin using a custom bow adaptation attached to his arm. Billy Brimblecom Jr., a drummer who lost his left leg to cancer, shares how he...

When you go to a comedy club, you know what you’re there for. But what happens when comedy shows up somewhere else?  Meredith Dietz describes doing stand-up in a New York City office where employees were told not to laugh, and on a Staten Island Ferry where no one could escape the ride.  Years after his own incarceration, Ali Siddiq returns to jail to speak with people inside.&nbsp...

Some people savor every bite. Others eat 30 hot dogs in 10 minutes. Welcome to the world of competitive eating! Visit Lake Compounce for a Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest qualifier, where everyone is trying to prove they’re top dog. Then Crazy Legs Conti and Katina DeJarnett - aka Katina Eats Kilos - talk about what it takes to train, compete, recover, and keep chewing when your...

Joe Stone grew up playing volleyball, skateboarding, and breakdancing. Then, in 2012, a car crash left him paralyzed.  Doctors told him he would likely never move anything below his chest again. But five weeks after leaving the hospital, Joe found wheelchair rugby. This violent, fast, full-contact sport helped him rebuild strength, process anger, and feel alive in a changed body.  In thi...

Stephanie Salvilla so deeply loved - still loves - her baby boy, Gannon. In July 2009, after a week of disrupted routines and sleepless nights, her brain went on autopilot. She dropped off her older child, drove to work, and unknowingly left 5-month-old Gannon in the car. He died. In this deeply difficult and important conversation, Stephanie talks about grief, shame, public judgment, forgiveness,...

When you hear “philanthropy,” you might think of millionaires, black-tie galas, or buildings named after donors. But what if you could be a philanthropist without being wealthy? In this episode, you’ll meet people who donate small amounts to hundreds of places, hand out cash on city streets, and send money directly to people in poverty, no strings attached.  Explore the powe...

James Tillman remembers the smell of steak and onions cooking at his mother’s house on the day police came for him. He thought he’d be back soon. Instead, he spent a total of 18½ years incarcerated for a crime he did not commit. In 2006, with the help of the Connecticut Innocence Project , DNA evidence proved his innocence, making him the first person in Connecticut exonerated t...

The International Space Station was designed for science, research, and survival. But astronauts turned it into a music studio, an art studio, and a sewing room.  Former ISS commander and musician, Chris Hadfield, astronaut-painter Nicole Stott, and astronaut-quilter Karen Nyberg take us inside the strange, beautiful reality of making music, paintings, and handmade objects while orbiting Eart...

What if the real mystery isn’t Bigfoot or Nessie, but the people who devote their lives to searching for them?  Chion talks with Mike Wanders, who spent a year traveling through legendary Bigfoot country, and Steve Feltham, who has spent decades on the shore of Loch Ness.  What keeps a person returning, again and again, to a mystery that refuses to resolve itself? And what if not k...

For the past two years, at the end of interviews for Audacious, host Chion Wolf has been asking guests one question: have you ever had a dream or premonition that came true? Twenty-three guests describe vivid dreams, sudden urges, eerie intuitions, and moments of certainty that later proved accurate in ways they can’t explain. Some sensed love before it arrived. Some saw danger coming. Some...

Some people sign up for a 5K. Some people sign up for a race with a secret start time, no marked course, and books hidden in the woods. Or seven marathons on seven continents in seven days.  We have questions. Meet Jared Campbell, the only person ever to finish the Barkley Marathons four times - a secretive, nearly mythic race through the Tennessee woods with an unmarked course, brutal climbs...